Within My Heart
by Xescay
Summary: Cloud and Genesis are dead... Zack drifts in the meaningless thing called life, wishing that he could undo that night. Can Sephiroth help Zack and bring him back from his despair? Hints of shounen-ai.


Yaaay, an upload!

This is a sequel to Tada-no-Yume's 'Love That You'll Never Lose'. Thank you, for letting me write this story!

Genesis: Xescay does not own FF7, nor its characters. If she did, bad things would happen.

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He was dreaming again. It was that dream again. The one where the two men who he loved with his entire heart – no, his entire being – die. The blood was running down his blade, down onto his hands, staining them crimson, and marking him forever as a killer. His heart raced. As did his mind. _This couldn't be true. This can't be happening._ He closed his eyes, and willed everything to stop. He wished for everything to suddenly blur out. He willed himself to wake up from this nightmare.

He couldn't. Still, he was surrounded by the darkness, which threatened to swallow him up in its dark, gaping, endless maw. He shivered as a cold breeze entered the tunnel. Why? Why couldn't he make this un-happen? Why did things have to go the way they did? Why couldn't he _wake up?_

There was no light at the end of the tunnel, he realised as he continued drifting in the darkness of his dream-reality. It had never existed in the first place – it was just something some person had made up to keep his men in high spirits, even though everything seemed bleak. He sighed.

_I wonder when I will go…_

It was some time in the afternoon when Zack Fair woke from his slumbers. Perhaps it was because he had been so engrossed in his dreams that he had forgotten how to wake up. Perhaps it was because he hadn't wanted to wake up. Not even he knew the answer. Either way, he had awoken, and he was not in the tunnel anymore. That small, tiny, insignificant fact by itself was enough to make the broken man breathe a sigh of relief. He had wanted to forget everything. Cloud, Genesis, SOLDIER. He wanted to forget, but he couldn't quite bring himself to forget. No matter how many times he tried to forget, he found himself never really, truly wanting to forget the times he had shared with his friends. He never really wanted to forget Sephiroth's smile, nor Cloud's bashful blushes, nor Angeal's endless lectures, nor Genesis's recitals of LOVELESS. Everything was so dear to him, even now.

Finally, he got out of bed and made his way to the kitchen. It would be just another ordinary day. Just another day among many other days just like it. Life had become a routine; something so uniform and unchanging he could now recite everything that he did, and when, whenever he wanted to.

Such was what Zack Fair's life had become. A routine. A schedule. A boring, never changing procedure.

After breakfast, he brushed his teeth. He then sat himself at his table, a beautiful mahogany piece of art that he had made himself in his spare time, and began to eat. It was a magnificent table, and it was the most personalised thing in his apartment. Everything else was cold, sterile, and lifeless.

Just like the hull of a person Zack had become.

The phone ringed, shattering the silence that filled the cold room. Zack made no move to answer it. He didn't need to. Every day, at exactly seven in the evening, _he_ would call…

"Zack, I know you're listening, so please answer. Or at least take a walk outside. It's not healthy, cooping yourself inside your house."

Zack stared forth, seemingly deep in thought.

"It's not like _you_ know anything about this," he whispered after a short while. "You don't have anything to do with this, so just mind your own business."

"You're my _friend_, Zack. Of course this is my business."

"Then let's not be friends any more."

"You know what? I'm coming over, and there's nothing you can do about it."

The machine beeped, signalling the end of the message. Zack sat there, on his couch, his calm face not betraying the panic he felt within. Coming over? Sephiroth was coming over?

It was the first time in a long time that his routine had been changed.

Sephiroth rang the bell once again. Zack would break soon, he knew, if someone didn't bring the man to his senses first. He rang the bell again.

For all his knew, Zack might have snapped a long time ago.

Zack sat on the couch that was far too big for just one person. He sighed and waited Sephiroth to get tired of ringing the bell and go back to wherever it was that he had come from.

But some little part of him couldn't wait to speak to the General face to face again, and it whispered, _Seph, just come in._

"Zack, if you don't open this door, I swear, I _will_ break it down," Sephiroth's voice drifted to Zack's ears. The raven-haired man sat, reclined, on the too-big couch.

There was no way Seph would actually do that.

Was there?

There was the sound of someone kicking the front door. Zack cursed as he stood up. Was that madman truly going to try to break down the door?

"Ok, ok, I'm coming," he sighed. "So please don't destroy my front door."

Outside, Sephiroth allowed a small, relieved smile to grace his otherwise stone-cold features.

Zack stood awkwardly at the door, the General he had looked up to since he was ten looking down at him with a slight smile.

"You're meant to say, 'come inside' or something like that, you know."

"C-come in…"

They sat there, in the middle of the far-too-big room. Zack tried to avoid all eye contact with the imposing man, who in turn tried to make eye contact with the raven-haired man.

"Uh, would you like something to drink?"

"Yes, I would."

Slowly, Zack warmed up to the conversation between the General and himself.

"Zack? I want you to come with me for a moment."

"Why?"

The General gave no answer, so the raven-haired man followed him out of curiosity.

Outside, the snow drifted gently down from the smoky skies, like dove's feathers wafting down from the heavens. Zack glanced up, and, for the first time in what seemed to be a lifetime, he smiled.

They walked through the hotel district, where Zack had moved to, and into the main part of the city. They walked among the many citizens of the city, but were not noticed. It was as if the world had become like Zack – cold and despondent. Just waiting for death to come.

"Hey, Seph, where are we going?" the younger man asked once more as they neared the ShinRa complex.

There was only silence from the General.

When they stepped into the grey building, they were greeted with naught but blank stares and generic disinterest. The receptionist, who sat at a great slate desk, looked up for a moment, before returning to inspecting her bright red painted fingernails.

"Whoa, this place is even _more_ boring than it used to be," Zack commented as he and the General boarded the elevator.

Slowly, the mechanical cage began its climb to its destination.

Finally, the elevator dinged as it came to a stop.

"Follow me," Sephiroth said. Mutely, Zack followed him, not quite sure where they were going, but not really caring, either. They could have been heading to Hojo's lab, and he wouldn't have cared one bit. They walked down several narrow dimly lit corridors, passing several people as they did. They all resembled mere ghosts, pale, skinny, and were almost see-through. Zack glanced at the ghostly people with worried eyes.

"Why's everyone so…" he trailed off as he searched for the right word.

"Weird?" Sephiroth supplied.

"Yeah, why's everyone so weird?"

The stoic General gave no answer.

Eventually, after traversing many halls and passing numerous people, they finally came to a stop in front of a darkened door.

"Where are we?"

The General gave no answer, so Zack, curious, edged closer and closer to the door, then opened it slowly. Inside was a simple lounge, furnished with only a metal desk and a few chairs. Despite its un-personalised features, it had a welcoming, warm feel to it.

"Why is this place so familiar…?"

Then it hit him.

"My room…"

The General nodded. "When you left, I ordered the men not to take your apartment apart, and instead, keep things as they were."

"But why?"

Sephiroth gazed into Zack's eyes. "Because I didn't want to lose you. Not after losing Cloud and Genesis."

Cloud. Genesis. The words gouged deep into Zack's chest and uncovered a wound he had hidden from the rest of the world. It was a wound he had pretended never existed, but in truth, it still caused him hurt and pain, even a year afterward. It was a wound that had, over time, festered to the point that it seemed that it would never heal.

"Don't say…"

"Don't say their names? Why?"

Zack's life had revolved around his two best friends – Cloud and Genesis – before _that_ happened. Before his world was torn to shreds. Before his friends were taken away from him. _Forever_.

"B-because…"

He struggled to say it. He didn't want to admit his weakness. Especially not to the General. He didn't want to admit how he had cried himself to sleep, nor how he had seriously he had thought about taking his life. He didn't want to talk about how writing – which he now did for a living – was the only thing that gave him an escape from this reality.

The General only smiled gently, trying to egg the man on.

"Because… I-I…"

_Because I love them. Because I miss them. Because I don't want to lose them. Because they're too precious to me to lose._

"I… love them…" Zack sighed. Why did it feel like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders?

Sephiroth's arms embraced the younger man's frame, pulling him closer. Zack's body began to quiver, as emotions that had once been locked away deep within him came out in a sudden torrent.

"Se-Seph… I miss them…" Zack whispered faintly as he buried his face deeper into the older man's broad chest. It hurt, his chest, but it also felt… _warmer_, like some kind of emotion was bubbling from deep within his heart, trying to surface. It was an emotion his stoic front had never allowed for. Something he did not afford himself to have, lest he hurt himself again.

It was a little emotion called happiness.

Even as tears streamed down his face, even as his body trembled and his breath became uneven, he smiled. For the first time in an eternity, he allowed a smile to grace his face.

"Sephiroth?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you." In those two simple words, he put his true feelings, the ones he had concealed for so long. In those two words was an honestly that most people would never be able to match.

Because he was Zack Fair once more. He was once more a hyperactive puppy, a happy-go-lucky man who cared greatly for his friends, and dreamt of nothing more than becoming a hero.

No longer was he the dry husk of a person he had become.

_Embrace me for just a moment longer, because I don't know how long this moment will last._

_Embrace me forever, because you're always within me,_

_Deep within my heart._

_~Fin~_

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Genesis: *reading off script* Thank you for reading. Please comment and leave words of either encouragement or critique. Taking the time to do this is very much appreciated by the author. Thank you.


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